Peter Hall

I'm getting to like Peter Hall. Never thought I would. Always thought him a bit smug. I have a memory of him standing outside the New Theatre in Cardiff, outside the stage door in fact: he is there looking smugly, I thought, at passers by on their way into the theatre to see the nastiest play I've ever seen: Pinter's "The Homecoming".
I picked up Hall's autobiography in the local library this morning; it was on a shelf of books for sale and since it was only 20 p I bought it thinking "well I won't be losing much if I just read the Intro". But it's quite fascinating. His childhood is interesting and entertaining. His father, the only one of his family then to date to have gone to a secondary school; his mother, with a furious temper but loving nature, given to speaking in cliches: "Better to be born lucky than rich"; "It'll all work out in the end; "a change is as good as a rest". Reminds me of my own mother! His father was a "miserably paid clerk in the goods depot at Bury St Edmunds railway station". His mother did not work - in those days most mothers didn't, their work was housework.
I have never seen a production of a play by Peter Hall that I liked much. I saw his Shakespeare History plays on TV a long time ago and felt that an earlier production of them was better. I saw a production of his of "The Wild Goose" by Ibsen and didn't like it at all: he introduiced a comic element into it that was not at all suitable, I thought. It has one of my favourite characters in all of literature in this play: Gregers Werle, an idealist who brings a family to its knees with his honesty.
But I may now get to like Peter Hall the more I delve into his life through this well-weritten autobiography. You never know, I may like one of his productions one day. But not another "The Homecoming" please.